Save Money AND Paper

Too often, we see students printing out page after page of PowerPoint lecture slides, with just a few words on each page.  Why not save money AND save paper by printing multiple slides per page?

The Weinberg Library Green Team will be posting these fliers (printed on reused paper, naturally) around our computer labs to remind all of our students and patrons to be conscious of how much they’re using.  If you have any trouble with mutiple-slide printing, just ask for help at the Reference Desk!

Earth Week at the Library End Review

So the week of April 19th was our first celebration of Earth Week here at the library. For those of you that haven’t been keeping up, we created some displays to try to become more environmentally conscious, and hopefully inspire some of the students to waste less. Our green tactics included stickers on printers, scanners and paper towel dispensers reminding you that the paper “comes from trees.”

But everything that we did was covered in a post from the beginning of Earth Week. What I’m here to focus on is the suggestions that we got from students, which we are going to be taking into consideration as we focus more on sustainability.

Yes, one of those suggestions is that we paint the walls green.

There were some especially good suggestions that we’d like to mention.

  • Install automatic sensors in the ProDeo room after the library closes, so that we don’t waste energy if no one is in the room at night.
  • Turn off the automatic doors at night. According to the suggestion, that alone will save enough energy to light New York city for 500,000 years. I’d personally like to check the math on that one.
  • Get double sided printers.

Some of these suggestions may not come into immediate effect, but we are going to try for some. Keep and eye out for recycling bins though, we have those on every floor.

And remember, please only print what you need.  We go through a lot of paper every week.

Here's how much wasted paper the 2nd floor computer lab creates in a single week.

Earth Week in the Library

How much paper does the Library use each week? Let's just say it's not pretty.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, and we green-minded folk here in the Library will be celebrating all week.  Since this is our first year officially celebrating Earth Week, we thought we’d put up a few displays to encourage everyone to start thinking about how the Library could be more sustainable.  So if you visit our building this week, be sure to take a look at:

1) Our 5’3″ stack of paper in the  second floor computer lab, which represents the 45,000 sheets of paper our Library printers use up each week.

2) Our growing collection of recycled paper, showing how much paper is thrown into the recycling bin in the computer lab each week.  While we’re glad that this paper is being recycled rather than just thrown away, we hope to impress upon all of our patrons just how much paper is wasted each week. Please only print when necessary!

3) Our “These Come From Trees” reminder stickers, now on every Library printer, copier, and paper towel dispenser.

4) A display of sustainability-themed books in our fourth floor Quiet Study Room.

5) Recommendations for sustainability-related resources from our faculty and staff, on the first floor right inside the Library’s terrace entrance

6) A big sheet of paper (reused, naturally!) where you can write down your own ideas and suggestions for how the Library should go green in 2010.

Also, check back here at Infospot @ WML throughout the week for green-themed books that we’ve just recently added to our collection.

And when you’re not in the Library, be sure to participate in some of the joint University of Scranton/City of Scranton Earth Week activities, starting with tonight’s concert by alternative rock band Monty Are I and culminating on Friday with the popular Fair Trade Fair.